Bryan's POV:

Six months later.

I wake up from another one of my nightmares. They are always the same, Diego wins the fight, he kills me and takes a crying Max away from my corpse.

Something stirs against my chest. When I look down, I see that Max is still asleep as he snuggles deeper into my chest.

He truly is an angel. I can't imagine a world anymore where he isn't by my side.

Everyday I try to make him as happy as possible to make up for all the pain that I gave him before the apocalypse. I should have followed my heart from the beginning instead of abandoning him, while I let myself get manipulated by Diego's sick mind.

It took the end of the world to wake me up and see who my heart truly belonged to all these years.

I gently brush a scrape of hair from his face with my deformed hand. Another thing that will make me remember Diego is my left hand. That monster cut my little finger and ring finger off, it makes me sick to look it. However, in the end, that is only a small price I had to pay for the safety of my angel.

I almost died six months ago but Abby managed to save me. I didn't wake up for five days. But I fought to wake when I would hear Max cry and beg for me to open my eyes. I tried so hard to open my eyes, until I finally succeed and was immediately greeted by a pair of beautiful blue eyes.

Looking outside I see the sun already up in the sky. I carefully escape Max's grip around me and replace my body with my pillow where he snuggles into.

When I arrive in the kitchen, I see that the rest is already outside. I decide to go to the lake to be alone for a minute.

I head outside and am greeted by Lilly and our new part of the family Noah.

Noah and his dog Lara found our cabin three months ago and asked to stay with us. Lilly and I were completely against the idea to let strangers in. What if he belonged to a bigger group or would kill us in our sleep?

But Max convinced us to give him a chance. A bad person wouldn't keep a dog alive when he already had lack of food. Abby agreed with Max and didn't see a bad person in Noah.

So we let him and his dog stay.

Noah is a very sweet and happy person. After the death of Olivia, the cabin wasn't the same anymore. Lilly closed herself off from the rest of us, Abby was almost never home anymore and Max blamed himself for her death.

But somehow the new guests healed us all a bit. Noah can bring a smile on everybody's face with his personality and has gotten very close with Lilly. I think Noah has a small crush on her.

After a small talk with Lilly and Noah I ask them to tell Max when he wakes up that I am at the lake fishing.

We are all still healing from the loss of Olivia, but we are getting better each day. Max is slowly realizing that her death wasn't his fault. She would have wanted us to continue to survive without her and be happy.

Even if Olivia isn't physically with us anymore, she will always stay in our hearts

When I arrive at the lake, I see Abby playing catch with Lara. They go every day on patrol together to keep our home safe.

Abby is still not very talkative and never told us what really happened to her before the apocalypse, but she is just like the rest of us a part of the family.

She spots me immediately when I come into view and smiles at me. Abby has also gotten more comfortable around me. I give her a wave which she returns before running back into the woods with Lara.

I go on the pier where our fishing stuff still lays from yesterday. Maybe not the smartest thing to leave it in the open. However other humans are getting really scarce.

It is already one year after the day that people started to turn into flesh eating monsters.

The end of the world could have been worse for us. Most people that are still alive don't have a safe place like us. However, that doesn't mean we are completely safe. There can always come somebody bad that want to take this from us.

But we when they come we will be prepared and never lose somebody of us like we lost Olivia.

A pull on my fishing line gets my mind back from my thoughts. Looks like we are eating papillote today.

After catching my third fish, I hear a branch snap behind me. I turn around to see Max walking out of the woods. "Hey sleepyhead, looks like you finally decided to wake up," I say teasingly.

"Well you could always wake me up. Now I feel so useless, it is already afternoon and I did nothing," he says with a sigh at the end.

"You deserve a bit extra sleep while I went fishing. After all I am the one that kept you up all night," I say with a wink that makes him blush.

I like that even after all this time being together I still can make him blush. It gives me a funny feeling inside whenever his cheeks turn peachy.

All of a sudden Max is in front of me and bring our lips together.

The kiss is sweet and passionate. This is also something I love about him, when he takes the lead.

Max is the one to break the kiss after a few minutes. He is slightly panting as he looks me deep in the eyes and tells me, "I love you Bryan."

My heart beats faster every time those words come out of his mouth.

"I love you to my angel," I respond with a small peck on his lips. We lay down in each other arms as I admire the love of my live.

Our new family is strong and we will only become stronger.

Together we will survive this world.

We will survive another day.

Posted on July 08, 2019.

This art is made by the amazing KD_Bryson. Thank you so much, it is absolutely beautiful.